| regarding stopping power, caliber, velocity and all that...
I believe in KISS... if you stick with .380, .38 special, 9mm, .40 or .45 in a self defense round, you will be just fine. Then its a matter of how the particular gun feels to you and if you prefer revolver or semiautomatic.
Regarding self defense round: the standard bullet is FMJ = full metal jacket. That is lead encased in copper.
The goal to killing someone with a handgun is to maximize damage to vital organs. You don't want a bullet that will just zip on through the body and make an entrance and exit hole with minimal other damage. This is actually dangerous for home defense because a pass through bullet will go through the bad guy, through a wall and you might end up killing widow jones down the street. There are bullets made to do a lot of spreading out and breaking up when the hit the body at velocity. These bullets are called JHP (jacketed hollow point) - they are lead partially enclosed in copper with exposed hollow tips that easilty spread on impact.
The self defense JHP bullets are more expensive than the standard FMJ bullets so obviously you won't do your practice target shooting with the self defense bullets. Save those for when you need them.
That all said, self defense rounds in the standard self defense calibers (.380, .38 special, 9mm, .40, .45) will all do just fine for the purpose of stopping an intruder. You just need the right gun to fire them.
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